WEC stands for World Endurance Championship (the international series that races at Le Mans*) and COTA stands for Circuit of the Americas in Austin (home of the Formula One United States Grand Prix).
In previous years, Super Sebring featured the US round of WEC on the Friday and IMSA’s 12 Hours of Sebring (the US series) on its traditional Saturday, dating back to 1950. The Paris-based (need I say more?) Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile was butt-hurt when the Sebring organizers balked at swapping dates so their “more important” series got top billing and decamped to Texas after 2023. Knowing Super Sebring’s days were numbered I spent five days that final year living out of my late, lamented E46 BMW 325i to enjoy both series.
Sebring is Woodstock on wheels. Facebook friends spend two weekends camping there to catch practice, qualifying and support races and even though I didn’t do that I spent more time than I ever have at a race track and enjoyed every minute of it. Not drinking didn’t dampen my enthusiasm one iota!
Anyway, I didn’t even attempt to watch this year’s race because it was on some obscure network and I was working. I can’t imagine the attendance and atmosphere at the wonderful Austin circuit came close to the Sebring years but, oh, those cars! Same specs for both series with teams and drivers often migrating back and forth between sanctioning bodies.
This video was shot by a Florida-based (I think) videographer who calls himself Lanky Turtle and beats typical TV coverage by virtue of NO ANNOYING ANNOUNCERS masking the mellifluous sound of the race cars. Good speakers or headphones recommended for the ten minutes of this video.
WATCH AND LISTEN!
*Not true, strictly speaking, but this post is for general audiences. 🤣
I'll watch this later on in the week. Thank you!
I stumbled upon the Austin race on Velocity and watched some of it. Fairly entertaining racing!